From the beginning of the story of the exodus from Egypt, the narrative lectionary jumps directly to a moment forty years later, just before Moses’ death and the entrance of the Israelites into the promised land.

Here the action pauses while Moses instructs the people, reminding them of all that their parents were commanded at Mount Horeb immediately after they left Egypt.

This passage connects with last week’s in naming the mountain of encounter with God “Horeb,” as in Exodus 3:1, rather than Sinai. This unusual appellation appears only two other times in Exodus, a handful of times outside the Pentateuch, and otherwise only in Deuteronomy. The more common term, “Sinai,” appears universally elsewhere, and only twice in Deuteronomy (in a poem in chapter 33).

Most of Deuteronomy is presented as Moses’ speech reiterating the law given at Mount Sinai (thus the name “deutero-” [second] + “nomy” [law]). But it is more than a list of laws -- rather it is hortatory in nature, sermonic, cajoling and motivating with compelling arguments, and most particularly the injunction to remember and repeat divine instructions.